Water Petals
by Celeste Aislin
Summary: Before the end of the world was even upon him, Sumeragi Subaru's world had already crashed and burned. What brought this tragic man forward the 8 years after his sister's death to face the physical end? Or more precisely, who?


_So I began writing this little ficlet after Sawyer Raleigh forced me into X fandom. Since then, as she's explored different avenues for characters, I've come along for the ride; one of our favorites to puzzle over is Subaru Sumeragi. At some point, while discussing the 8 or so odd years between Tokyo Babylon and X/1999, we decided Subaru must've had some sort of relationship with someone -friendship, romance, it didn't matter. SOMETHING brought him from the man he was at the closing of one series to the man Kamui met in X. This is an experimental exploration of one such possibility._

_Disclaimer: If only I did own these characters, my life would be so different...and my feet probably wouldn't hurt so much from my day-job.  
_

Water Petals

. Part One.

. . .

Himawari twirled a lock of her long, black hair, masking her gaze partially as she eyed the man sitting within the stone confines of the marble gazebo. As he took a long drag from his cigarette, she contemplated his face, and why she felt so drawn to come here and watch him, day after day. There was nothing terribly magnetic within his features or his countenance; if anything, he seemed the sort who your eyes could easily move over without cause for pause. Or more, Himawari noted, it was that he almost did not wish to be noticed, wanted to meld in with the surroundings so if eyes did catch his, they could just as easily rove past his face onto something of greater importance. She wondered how many days she too had simply passed him over, too caught up within her own activities to take note of much beyond.

Then one day, hurrying past from one class to another, her eyes had lingered a moment longer than usual in the particular spot he stood, and it was as though something emanated from him. She had needed to physically stop in order to marvel at why she felt the urge to look at him in the first place. Himiwari wasn't sure how long she'd remained there, standing within a moving sea of people, feeling as if she and the curious, bittersweet man beneath the marble canopy were the only two individuals who stood still. All she knew was since that day, his habit had become her own, a routine filling in the blank spots of her days. Here she was once again, eyeing his subdued profile with a hyper intense focus she never knew she possessed. She didn't need to wonder at what had changed her gaze enough that he finally did attract her notice; more, she needed to wonder why it was he who caught her attention.

. . .

Through the light blue haze of smoke, Subaru noticed the girl watching him again. He had grown used to her peering glances, felt no specific unease from her presence. It really was nothing more than the slightest shiver of a feeling, having eyes upon him, though given extra thought, Subaru might have wondered at it not bothering him more. His body should have screamed with adrenaline at that tiny sliver of perception, yet he only continued to inhale the rich toxin of his habit, and stand there like a stone amongst the pillars, feeling no more irritation than one would at a single strand of hair being out of place. Only a vague curiosity kept him alert to it at all; once he identified who the girl was not, he had no real need for vigilance. Yet her persistence, that continued presence of shiver at his back, day after day…it brought back the smallest of memories, memories like filth which should have died and rotted long ago, memories he always tried to cut away but found regenerated with disgusting clarity each waking moment.

Subaru scowled, a fraction of change to his expression, and dropped the cigarette, crushing and burying the embers with his heel like he wished he could those memories. Would he always travel down this road when he felt a gaze, even one as crystal clear and purely innocent as that girl's with the turquoise eyes? Did all watching eyes secretly burn with a darker, reddened hue and twisted reason?

. . .

Himiwari stirred her tea delicately, barely glancing up as the familiar figure slid into the seat across from her, dropping his burden with barely a sound.

"How is he?" she asked softly, staring into the swirling ripples with quiet determination.

"The same."

"The same. Always the same," she said, surprised by the note of frustration underlying her words. As though she could expect anything else. With a sigh, she pushed aside the tea, and groped for a smile as she looked up into Doumeki's black eyes. Even if Doumeki understood it wasn't his presence that saddened her, she couldn't quite arrange the right words so he would fully understand why the lack of presence required a pleasant smile more than anything. Himiwari knew he felt it too, the small, dull ache that someone was missing. Even if they no longer pulled a third café chair up, even if they never left a physical space for him, he was still missed. No matter how she tried, she always missed him. Was it that aspect that frustrated her more than anything?

The silence that continued between them was not unpleasant or strained, but it lacked the companionable quality of those years before, the "unlacking" years. Himiwari had not realized how much that bothered her, that emptiness which they continued to leave out of pointless respect, until she was filling it with words she never planned to speak.

"I've taken up stalking," she blurted out, not even bothering to add an air of nonchalance to the words. If anything, she sounded like a criminal confessing a devious act…was nonstalking stalking considered illegal, she mused.

Doumeki's raised eyebrow spoke volumes. Setting his coffee down, he folded his hands atop the table, his expression becoming less quizzical and more accepting with the motion. "An interesting pastime to choose," he said, his deadpan almost imperceptible.

"It's no one you know," she continued, all the while wondering where the explanation was even headed. "Actually, it's no one even I know. You know the marble gazebo on Clamp Campus?"

"I know of a few gazebos matching that description…" Only Doumeki could keep a straight face during such a conversation. But then, only Doumeki's presence would inspire Himiwari to fill silence in the first place.

"The location isn't the important part I guess. There's this guy there, I sort of just happened to see him one day. And he's…" Himiwari struggled to find the right words to describe the figure she had taken to watching: his dark brow; green eyes the shade of spring grass; the way he always twirled the cigarette between his fingers once before lighting it, like a promise; the tilt of his head as he bent towards the glow of flame within his palm, the only time his features ever seemed lit, falsely or otherwise. "…sad." Anything more substantial eluded her, like grasping at that smoke the man seemed constantly caught in the midst of.

Anyone else would have jabbed at her, but Doumeki simply nodded as though this was a perfectly logical conversation, and that her observation was an essential reason to watch someone as obsessively as she did. Then again, he wasn't truly aware of how often she gave in to this habit.

"Why is he sad?" Doumeki asked, his gaze continuing to pry questions from her.

_Why is anyone sad?_ Himiwari countered, words of answer rising unbidden before she could finish her rhetorical inner question. "I'm not sure. I've never spoken to him. He stands in the same place every day, smoking a cigarette, never with any company…"

"He has company in you." Himiwari didn't bother arguing the statement. A secret, small and terrible part of herself felt Doumeki could find company in a stone wall. It was his nature. It was not hers. And she didn't know how, or why, but she felt sure she also knew it was not the bittersweet man's nature either. Maybe he wanted it to be so, but it wasn't. She knew Doumeki, she knew sad loneliness, and she knew which the stranger was.

"I'm only a spectator," Himiwari said in answer, and found the fact somewhat disheartening rather than reassuring.

"Perhaps for now." And thus Doumeki ended the conversation as he resumed drinking his coffee, watching passerbys while Himiwari watched him, turning his meaning over in silence while pursuing her tea once more.

. . .

Subaru felt the soft rays of early spring light filtering onto his back, and where once he had appreciated the warmth, it now barely registered in his consciousness. Nothing really registered within him anymore. He was like a puppet for life, going about the gestures as powerlessly as a marionette, and with just as much awareness. Sometimes he felt moments of clarity, like the pause as his lungs screamed in protest at the first smoke he intentionally inhaled, or when the sakura strayed into his path and caressed his skin by pure accident… What Subaru could not figure was if he lived for those moments, or lived to forget them. He consistently wrapped himself in an inescapable cocoon of memories and moments and thoughts, hating the pain of them and yet always existing with them embracing his person.

The shift from thoughtlessness into reality was seamless, yet jarring none the less. The presence on his shoulder, feather-light, brought his attention to the small, cream and yellow canary perching itself happily near his turned cheek. Subaru's widened green eyes met the brown beads of the bird, which cocked its small head with patient expectation, as if to say, "Don't worry, I'll wait for you to remember." And just like that, Subaru's voice, rusted over with disuse, whispered out a quiet "Hello there". Subaru realized, this was a moment that could be called timeless –it stood still and separate amongst those many thoughts and memories, and for years to come, he remembered it as a beginning, the first of many ripples.

He turned his gaze away from the canary, and unwittingly it fell to the second ripple.

Subaru had never seen her fully; she always relied on a mixture of scenery and her own, quite abundant hair to hide herself from even his peripheral sight. She stood taller than he had imagined, and could almost be called gangly, yet as she walked briskly towards him, Subaru thought instead she had a certain sleek and bounding quality. And her eyes, which despite her obvious embarrassment never looked away from his, were a deeper and brighter blue than he ever could have imagined existed. He realized, with some finality, that she would be what men referred to as a heartbreaker; he also realized that those men would almost gladly come away devastated. The familiarity of feeling coated Subaru's skin with a cool shiver that tasted, he knew, of fear.

The bird on his shoulder chirped once with what he guessed was recognition before burrowing closer into him, an odd reassurance to its silken feathers. Subaru waited as the girl approached him, watching her step into the gazebo with puzzling reverence. He wondered at her countenance as her features became clearer. She seemed, well, aside from slightly pink tinged, to be… still was the word he placed. It confused him, why he would choose such a word for someone clearly moving towards him physically. There was a mixture of tranquility and reserve to her face, and something more, a sweet rebellion against the others. Subaru mentally shook his head to try and make sense of the clash of existance she represented. A chirrup beside his ear whispered an answer before the rustle of wings brought the bird to the girl's waiting shoulder, but Subaru heard only the girl's first words to him.

. . .

_Thus it begins. I'm not quite sure what I'll file this under, but I do know that if i don't continue writing on it, Sawyer Raleigh'll have my head. So at least that means it'll go somewhere in the future!_


End file.
